HuffPost editor-in-chief stepping down to join podcast company

HuffPost editor-in-chief Lydia Polgreen announced to staffers on Friday that she will be departing the Verizon-owned publication to join podcast company Gimlet. 

“I’m incredibly grateful to my extraordinary colleagues, and to the leadership of Verizon Media, which has championed HuffPost at a time when aggressive journalism that holds power to account is more necessary and more under threat than ever,” Polgreen said in a statement shared on Twitter on Friday. 

Some news! pic.twitter.com/R3Nx3EQWnP

— Lydia Polgreen (@lpolgreen) March 6, 2020

Before joining HuffPost, Polgreen served as a New York Times associate masthead editor and editorial director of NYT Global. She took over for Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington in the role of editor-in-chief in December 2016. 

Polgreen said she will start at Spotify-owned Gimlet “later in the spring.” 

“I’ve been an audio obsessive since I was a little expat kid glued to the shortwave radio in our kitchen in Kenya, yearning to connect with the far flung world,” she said in her statement. “Gimlet has built the greatest audio team in the world, and I’m so lucky to have the chance to learn from them. Together we have the opportunity to chart the future of the spoken word on the world’s most powerful audio platform. I can’t wait to get started later this spring.”